ARCHIVED - Postal service between UK and Spain has been temporarily suspended

The new coronavirus variant has caused disruption in many unexpected quarters

The British Post Office has confirmed that due to the current situation regarding restrictions on travel to France and the huge backlog of lorries waiting to cross the channel, that postal services to much of Europe has been temporarily suspended including Spain.

It has made the following statement specific to Spain: “Following the announcement from the French government to restrict air, road, ferry and train travel from the UK to France from midnight on December 20 for a period of 48 hours, Royal Mail has temporarily suspended all mail services to Spain. This is a fast-moving situation and we're monitoring things on an hourly basis. We're working to keep as many international mail services running as possible given the current restrictions. Items already in the system will be processed as normal and prepared for dispatch. These items will be held securely until we're able to get them to their relevant destinations. We're keeping the situation under close and constant review.”

“We're closely monitoring the situation and are ready to open our services as soon as we are able to once the restrictions have been lifted. We continue to explore all options.

We're working with our airline and postal/courier partners across the globe to maintain services, however delays should be expected. Many countries have implemented special measure to combat the spread of Coronavirus COVID-19, especially for signature service to maintain social distancing. The number of countries we can access is changing daily.

We strongly advise not to send items to destinations listed as ‘On suspension’: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine.”

Readers have advised on Wednesday that the Post Office in the UK is currently refusing to accept any post for Spain at the moment and that Spanish Post Offices have refused to accept mail for the UK today.

It’s also important to be aware that some of the normal parcel delivery services have temporarily suspended their overland services due to the situation and are only processing packages which can be sent via air.

So if you are expecting mail/parcels, check with the delivery company to see if the missing items have made it into Spain yet!

For the moment, it’s advisable to stop ordering any items which require postage from the UK.

Obviously, we can expect a major build-up of a postage and parcel back-log behind the 5,000 lorries now attempting to cross the channel.